China is playing a positive role in improving the agricultural production and food production capacity of developing countries and has made significant contributions to global food security, Han Changfu, minister of agriculture, said during the recent 37th Food and Agriculture Organization Conference of the United Nations. Han also expressed hope that the international community could work together to cope with the challenges brought by the deterioration of global food security.

The Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway will create a new economic growth belt along 1,318 kilometers of rail lines, the Guangzhou-based Nanfang Daily reported Thursday.

Industry insiders said China's newest high-speed railway will strengthen the integration of the Bohai Sea Rim and the Yangtze River Delta economic zones and also promote balanced, sustainable development of urbanization and economy in the region.

China is committed to cooperating with other countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) to the best of its capacity, Assistant Minister of Commerce of China Yu Jianhua said in in Vientiane on Thursday.

He made the remarks at the Third GMS Economic Corridors Forum, which opened on Thursday in Laos' capital of Vientiane and attended by ministers and senior officials from the GMS countries as well as representatives from the private sector and development partners

The words "freedom of navigation" have frequently appeared in the media of the United States amid the recent territorial disputes in the South China Sea. According to a report by Reuters on June 23, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said when meeting with the Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario, "We are concerned that recent incidents in the South China Sea could undermine peace and stability in the region," and "U.S. national interests in freedom of navigation and respect for international law are at stake." Some senior U.S. officials and mainstream agencies have repeatedly made similar remarks over recent months as if international navigation in the South China Sea were in peril.

South China Sea waters will be churned up if some regional countries insisted on risky ventures to address the so-called border issue. What is happening now is already inviting the global concerns--- Vietnam is using live ammunition in its war exercises in the waters of the South China Sea. Meanwhile, Philippine President Benigno Aquino's office stated it was renaming the South China Sea as the "West Philippine Sea" amid the mounting tensions with Beijing.

Three events will serve as footnotes for the 90th anniversary of the ruing Communist Party of China: the world's single longest high-speed railroad connecting Beijing and Shanghai goes to operation; top lawmakers approve an amendment to the tax code, giving tax exemptions to low- and middle-income earners but adding tax on the rich; and probably, by coincidence, Premier Wen Jiabao visits Hungary, Britain and Germany, forging a deeper and closer partnership with Europe.

BEIJING - The Communist Party of China (CPC), chosen by history and the people, has accomplished three major events since its formation 90 years ago, President Hu Jintao said Friday.

The first is that the CPC, relying on the people, completed the new-democratic revolution, winning national independence and liberation of the people, Hu said at a grand gathering marking the 90th founding anniversary of the CPC.

The second is that the CPC completed the socialist revolution and established the basic socialist system, he said.

The third is that the Party carried out a great new revolution of reform and opening up, creating, upholding, and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics, he said.

"These three major events reshaped the future and destiny of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation," Hu said.

QINGDAO, Shandong - The world's longest cross-sea bridge, spanning Jiaozhou Bay of Qingdao in East China's Shandong province, opened to traffic on Thursday amid a major effort to further consolidate this coastal city into an international shipping center for Northeast Asia.

July 1 marks the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). On this special occasion, Li Yechen, former chief conductor of the special train for Chairman Mao, sat down with China Daily to share his stories from the old days, unveiling the unknown side of Mao.

BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Senior Chinese leader Li Changchun on Thursday called on Tsinghua University to improve its education quality to foster more talent and boost its influence in global education.

Tsinghua University should boost its education quality, focus on improving key subjects, promote its innovative ability and strengthen its talent pool to achieve major world university status, Li, member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, told principals, teachers and students while visiting the university Thursday.

HARARE, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe's African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) said Thursday it is committed to continuing the pragmatic cooperation with the Communist Party of China (CPC), and suggested the two parties strengthen exchanges at different levels for mutual learning.

BEIJING, June 29 (Xinhua) -- Local government investment and affordable housing construction will lift China's investment growth by 25.1 percent in 2011, the Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) said in a report on Wednesday.

According to the bank's six-month report on China's macro economy, the country's investment growth will top 25.5 percent year-on-year for the first half of 2011, while the second half may continue to see the momentum.

Hu Xinzhi, general manager of the bank's strategic planning department, said local governments' investments would be the main factor that supports the rapid investment growth in the second half of this year despite their huge debts.

SYDNEY, June 29 (Xinhua) -- the Australian Westpac Banking Corop is planning a further expansion into the lucrative China market, after celebrating the opening of its second branch in Beijing on Wednesday.

Recent disputes in the South China Sea have been focused above all on the Nansha Islands, drawing in the Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei and going back to the 1960s.

BEIJING—China's Ministry of Finance said it is scrapping certain rules that foreign companies say favored domestic products for government procurement, a significant step toward easing concerns that global companies would be excluded from billions of dollars in contracts.

BEIJING—China's legislature approved Thursday a measure to increase the threshold at which workers must pay income taxes to 3,500 yuan ($540) per month from 2,000 yuan ($308) per month, part of efforts to address low-income earners' concerns about inflation and help ensure social stability.

WASHINGTON—The International Monetary Fund executive board Tuesday officially named Christine Lagarde as the next IMF director, after the French finance minister won late support from the U.S. and several major emerging-market nations.

As China’s influence intensifies across the world, interest in the study of its official language is also growing. Fluency in Mandarin – long the world’s most commonly spoken language – has become an increasingly desirable skill in both business and diplomatic circles, with roughly 1,600 American public and private schools now offering Mandarin classes. Recently, the language has even been dubbed “the new English” by those confident in its future. But as author Deborah Fallows found out, knowledge of Chinese is advantageous in more than just a political or economic sense.

CHONGQING, China — The kindergarten musical climaxed in a whirlwind of violence: A teacher playing a Japanese soldier sliced down a peasant girl with a curved sword, just as two tykes in Red Army outfits took aim at him with plastic pistols.

Faced with financial pressures and a housing backlog, local governments have eased the income ceilings for affordable housing

(Beijing) – The government is in the midst of an unprecedented push to build 3.6 million units of guaranteed housing in the next three years, but the program has yet to benefit its intended low-income audience.

Rumors have been circulating in the last few months that small enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta are suffering from tight capital supplies, large-scale work halts and even closures. Those that fear China's economy may suffer a "hard landing" see this as seeds of risk.

There is a clear-cut way out of the middle-income country trap – but it requires a commitment to the creation of high quality institutions

The 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party is an opportunity for China to celebrate economic and political achievements that have eluded all other communist parties. It is a testament to the pragmatism that the Party has demonstrated ever since Deng Xiaoping became determined to lift China out of poverty 30 years ago. But this anniversary is occurring against a backdrop of challenges which should make us wonder what China might look like when the centenary comes around.

Will China's economy face a hard landing, or will a slowdown be within its control? Whatever the answer, analysts would agree that economic growth is bound to slow down. Yet the central government hasn't written any sound plans to prepare for it.

China's real estate investment cups have runneth over – and domestic buyers have gone abroad on a strong yuan and favorable lending conditions – but has the investment bubble followed them?

In late May of this year, more than 400 people lined up to purchase apartments at a site in New Westminster City, a suburb of Vancouver. Within two and half hours of the start of the sale, all 153 units had been sold.

Examine the substance of Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's just-ended European tour, including the offer to help the financially challenged region by buying debt, and it's easy to conclude that support for the euro is in China's own interests. Assertions that Beijing has launched a campaign to make political capital from Europe in crisis, however, aren't a match with the truth.

As the Chinese Communist Party celebrates its 90th birthday and prepares for new leaders, it is re-implementing Mao Zedong's early ideas of intra-party democracy. Chairman Mao believed his democratic model would allow the party to avoid the fate of vanquished dynasties. Now, with the "on horseback" revolutionary leaders long gone, votes are the only way to confer legitimacy

China has remained cool in the face of Vietnamese provocations over disputed South China Sea territories, aiming to reinforce its status as a "responsible player" in international affairs. However, nationalists are interpreting this as weakness. While the backlash is for now too minor to provoke the social instability that worries the Chinese Communist Party, if it heats up, so will Beijing's response.

In an erotic romp through the twilight years of the Qing Dynasty, these memoirs recount among other trysts the Victorian Orientalist author's subservient servicing of the Empress Dowager Cixi, then 69, and adventures with the eunuchs and catamites of Peking's bathhouses. Intermingled with fantastical imperial palace intrigue, the work has faced charges of fraudulence and obscenity; this belies its charm and historical significance.

THE ROVING EYE

An extreme traveler, Pepe's nose for news has taken him to all parts of the Pepe Escobar globe. He was in Afghanistan and interviewed the military leader of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmad Shah Masoud, a couple of weeks before his assassination